


singing with all my skin and bone

by peacefrog



Series: what shall be (shall be enough) [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Face-Fucking, First Time, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 17:59:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5595586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacefrog/pseuds/peacefrog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As their plane lands in Argentina, Will presses his fingers into the scar tissue tugging tight against his cheek, wondering if Hannibal can read his mind. If Hannibal can hear the roar of memories echoing behind his eyes, the dim and ceaseless thoughts Will can not yet name may finally come into focus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	singing with all my skin and bone

_here are the illuminated_  
_cities at the center of me, and here is the center_  
_of me, which is a lake, which is a well that we_  
_can drink from, but i can’t go through with it._  
_i just don’t want to die anymore._  
_—richard siken_

—

“Do you want to die, Will?”

The question doesn’t come as a surprise, but Will had hoped Hannibal would at least wait until the blood under his nails had dried, until the last of the water had been forced from his lungs.

Will doesn’t answer, Hannibal doesn’t push, and for that he is thankful. Will doesn’t have anything resembling an answer rattling around his brain, his thoughts like crashing waves as Hannibal cleans the sea from his wounds and stitches them up with his steady surgeon’s hands.

Will lies in bed and stares across the room with tired eyes as Hannibal sutures the exit wound in his belly. He winces once when his needle hits a particularly tender spot, but aside from that he remains silent and still. He snips the final thread, then digs around in a bag he brought in from the hall until he comes out with several orange bottles. He presses pills into Will’s palm and watches as he swallows every one. 

Will’s last thought before giving in to sleep is that Hannibal’s hands should terrify him. They don’t, so he allows that to terrify him instead.

Will sleeps for days on end in their hideaway, a small cabin in the woods just outside of Wolf Trap. Will doesn't question how long Hannibal has had this place, so close to Will's old home. It’s always half dark outside when he opens his eyes, dusk and dawn bleeding into themselves. Hannibal is always awake at his side, always keeping watch. He insists Will get more rest whenever he offers him a turn sleeping in the single bed. Will wants to suggest they just squeeze in together, but the words get lost in the fogginess of his mind. 

Whatever Hannibal is, maybe it doesn’t need to rest at all.

—

When the stitches come out they find a boat that gets them as far as Cuba. There they find new identities, and Will feels a jolt of simultaneous joy and terror when he sees their aliases now share a last name. He snuffs the fire in his belly, convincing himself that Hannibal intends for Michael and Elias Ansett to pass as brothers. For now, he thinks, there is no harm in pretending.

As their plane lands in Argentina, Will presses his fingers into the scar tissue tugging tight against his cheek, wondering if Hannibal can read his mind. If Hannibal can hear the roar of memories echoing behind his eyes, the dim and ceaseless thoughts Will can not yet name may finally come into focus. 

They settle into a home near the sea and everything feels like a dream. Will draws clocks on the backs of napkins and in the margins of books, but they are a poor substitute for a true handle to reality, the numbers slipping through his fingers like sand.

—

Their first weeks together in their new home are quiet and filled with peace, bordering on a normalcy Will only caught glimpses of in his life with Molly. Will ties flies during the day and fishes in the early morning hours. Hannibal sketches and prepares exquisite meals. They don’t speak of death. Not of the ones they have caused, nor the ones that lie waiting for them in their shared future. 

The house has two bedrooms separated by nothing more than a wall that feels so thin at night it might as well not exist at all. Hannibal stays up late reading, and Will takes comfort in the sound of his lamp clicking off every night, eyes heavy with sleep in his bed that feels far too big. He wonders what it would be like to hear Hannibal breathing right beside him, if he even sleeps at all.

—

“You never answered my question,” Hannibal says, sipping his wine, looking out into the sprawling landscape of their backyard.

“And what question would that be?” Will feigns confusion. He’d hoped it wouldn’t come up again.

“Do you still desire death?”

“I’m here with you, aren’t I?”

The ambiguity of his words hang heavy in the air between them. Hannibal squeezes Will’s shoulder tight before turning back toward the house, sparks blossoming against Will’s skin beneath his shirt.

—

Hannibal lets himself in through Will's half-open bedroom door. He places a steaming cup of tea on the nightstand next to the bed.

"This should help you sleep."

"Thank you," Will says, reaching for the cup and letting the heat seep into his hands through the delicate porcelain.

“It’s healing nicely,” Hannibal says, thumbing at Will’s cheek. “The scarring should be minimal.”

Will ignores the stab of of disappointment he feels at the reassurance. He sets the teacup back on the nightstand, not allowing himself to long for the drag fingertips against his skin as Hannibal disappears into the hall, door clicking shut behind him. Will switches off his lamp, sleep pulling him down into the safety of a nightmare.

The muscles flanking Will’s lumbar spine are coiled in tight knots in the morning. He tries to keep the grimace from his face at breakfast, but Hannibal senses Will's discomfort as he stands at the sink washing dishes.

“May I?” Hannibal whispers against his neck, lips nearly grazing skin. Strong hands come to rest low against Will’s back, warmth seeping through the fabric of his shirt.

“Yes.” Will tightly grips the sponge in his hand beneath the water, then abandons his task in favor of white-knuckling the edge of the countertop as Hannibal’s hands begin to pull the tension out of him in waves of pleasure and pain.

He stands breathless and aching when Hannibal pulls away, his body shivering in the middle of the Argentinian summer, blood running cold in the absence of Hannibal’s touch.

He’s unable to think about much else after that. 

—

Hannibal’s hands have been many things, carrying in equal measure both tenderness and terror. They have torn apart and they have stitched together. They have built and they have bruised. They have been calm and chaos, a force of nature coexisting in the space between his bones.

They have been the only thing on Will’s mind for days and days. 

Will gladly receives any touch that is offered, but asking for it is another beast entirely, one he is not yet certain how to tame. Intimacy has never been easy for him, but with Hannibal he slips right into it like a second skin. With anyone else, that would make asking for such things simpler. With Hannibal, it makes the words lodge in his throat, terrified at how he aches.

His solution begins as an impulsive act, catching Hannibal’s wrist at dinner as he reaches for his fork. Will brings Hannibal’s hand up to his mouth, dragging fingertips across his lips, gauging Hannibal’s reaction. He swallows thickly as Will releases him, gripping the stem of his wine glass just a bit too tight, barely containing the smile threatening to ruin the tight line of his mouth.

“You want to be touched,” Hannibal says after several long moments of silence. “But asking for it borders on terrifying for you.”

“Are we in therapy, Dr. Lecter?” Will’s voice shakes, his body thrumming with nervous energy. He can’t decide if it’s his own, or something Hannibal is projecting.

“You don’t have to ask,” Hannibal says, calm and easy. “I give you permission to place my hands wherever you would like them, and I will take care of the rest.”

“Is that what you think I want?”

“Is it not?”

Will doesn’t answer, but later, as they sip wine out on the veranda, Will drapes Hannibal’s arm across his shoulder. Hannibal holds him close as the sun sets, Will set alight in every place their bodies touch.

—

Will finds Hannibal in his study, sketching the outline of what Will believes to be his old house in Wolf Trap. Will leans back against the desk, staring down at Hannibal until he drops his pencil. He places his hand next to Hannibal’s on the desk, Will’s smaller, fingers more delicate, but strength apparent in them both. Hannibal covers Will’s hand completely with his own, gazing up at him as he laces their fingers together.

—

Will lies in bed staring at the shadows etched across the ceiling, listening to the sounds coming through the wall from Hannibal’s room. His door clicking shut, his lamp clicking on, his wardrobe opening, closing, the creak of the mattress as he settles into bed.

Will rises to his feet, padding across the floor until he’s standing outside Hannibal’s bedroom door. It’s not until he finds himself gently knocking that he realizes what he’s allowed himself to do.

“Will?” Hannibal’s muffled voice is just barely audible through the door. “Please, come in.”

Will enters without saying a word, perching on the edge of the bed opposite Hannibal, looking over his shoulder to stare at Hannibal’s hands folded neatly in his lap. He silently slips in next to him, pulling the covers up to his chin.

Hannibal clicks the lamp off. They lie on their backs without saying a word, drifting off to sleep with their shoulders just barely touching beneath the covers.

—

The next night Will returns, slipping into Hannibal’s bed once more and lying next to him in the dark. Hannibal’s breaths come slow and steady, but when Will takes Hannibal’s hand and guides it to rest against his thigh, just below the hem of his boxers, it’s as if all the air is sucked from Hannibal’s lungs as he goes silent and still.

Hannibal settles into it, allowing his fingers to trail along the tender flesh of Will’s thigh, roaming down to his knee, but never daring to go any higher. Will realizes Hannibal is only going to touch where he has been permitted to, and for now Will isn’t certain if he could handle much more than this. 

It’s as if he’s on fire beneath Hannibal’s touch, torn between wanting to pull away and desperately needing more all at once. The sound of their ragged breathing fills the room, and Will can feel himself growing hard with every passing second. He wonders if Hannibal can feel it too, wonders if his own erection is obscenely tenting the covers on the other side of the bed.

He can’t bring himself to look or ask, pushing Hannibal’s hand away and rolling over on his side, body thrumming with an aching need that bites him to the bone. Hannibal stays flat on his back, their bodies not touching for the remainder of the night.

—

On the third night, Will guides Hannibal’s hand up the front of his shirt, trailing up to his chest and down against the waistband of his boxers. Hannibal turns on his side, breathing hot against Will’s neck, fingers trembling against his skin.

“Despite what you may think,” Hannibal whispers against his ear. “I am only human, Will.”

Will feels Hannibal’s self control wavering as surely as his own, desire pooling low in his belly as Hannibal’s unsteady hand rests against his hip. 

“Okay,” Will says in between shaky breaths. “Do it.”

Hannibal makes a sound somewhere between a goan and a gasp as he shoves his hand down the front of Will’s shorts, strong fingers gripping his painfully hard cock. Will squeezes his eyes shut and chokes down a moan, fighting the urge to come the moment Hannibal begins to stroke.

“Is it too much?” Hannibal asks, lips brushing against Will’s jaw.

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No.”

The angle is awkward, Hannibal’s movements restricted by the fabric of Will’s boxers, strokes as ragged as their breathing, Will’s hips twitching as he tries unsuccessfully to fuck Hannibal’s fist. 

“If you’d like,” Hannibal says, voice a trembling whisper. “You may use my mouth.”

“Hannibal, _fuck_.” The thought sends Will’s head spinning, so close to spilling over the edge already.

With shaking fingers Will attempts to shove his shorts down around his thighs. When Hannibal releases him for a moment to help, Will whimpers at the loss. 

“Yes,” Will says, breaths coming hard and fast. “Please.”

Hannibal tosses the covers off, cool night air prickling against Will’s skin as Hannibal settles in between his thighs. 

“Can I…” Will threads his fingers in the hair at Hannibal’s nape, gripping the back of his head tight.

“You can do as you please,” Hannibal says. “I assure you, I will not break.”

Will growls, instinct taking over as he guides Hannibal’s mouth to his cock. Supple lips wrap around the head, and he can’t help but buck his hips and greedily shove himself into that beautiful, wet heat as far as he can. 

Hannibal opens up to him right away, easily taking him to the back of his throat as Will plants his feet against the mattress for more leverage. His thrusts are erratic and unsteady, Hannibal gripping his thighs hard enough to bruise, choking around the thickness of him but making no effort to pull away.

In the moonlight spilling through the curtains Will sees Hannibal rutting against the mattress between his legs. The sound of his moans as he chokes on Will’s cock thrusting into his throat, the way his hips sputter, the knowledge that he’s coming in his pants as Will fucks his mouth is enough to send Will tumbling over the edge.

When he comes, Hannibal sighs happily and swallows every drop of him down like it’s the most delicious treat he’s ever been given. He licks him clean, tongue lapping at Will’s cock until he’s gone soft and overstimulated. Hannibal collapses against Will’s thigh, the two of them panting in the dark for what feels like hours.

“I don’t…” Will says, lazily stroking through Hannibal’s hair. “I don’t want death.”

Hannibal gazes up at him, eyes shining in the dark. “Then what do you want?”

“This,” Will replies, feeling more alive, more grounded in himself, than perhaps he ever has. “I want this. With you.”

“Okay.” Hannibal smiles, features twisting in the shadows. “Then this is what we will have.”

**Author's Note:**

> on tumblr [here](http://crossroadscastiel.tumblr.com/post/136348412617/singing-with-all-my-skin-and-bone-willhannibal). :)


End file.
